Prior art outdoor cooking apparatus (also generally known as “grills” and/or outdoor grills and/or barbecue grills) are known that (a) control temperature by adjusting the height of the cooking grate over the burning coals; (b) use a lid as a means to cook food in an enclosed environment; (c) have a firebox for smoking and/or preparing the fire; (d) have open fronts to easily access the embers, add charcoal or wood, and tend to the food being cooked or smoked.
Grill lids are typically hinged to the rear of the cooking enclosure and open upwards, meaning that to lift the lid of the grill, including a hot grill, the user must move his/her arm(s) over the cooking enclosure when moving the lid from a closed to an open position or in the reverse to close the grill. As a result, particularly when the user opens the lid of such grills during the cooking process, the user must stand directly in front of the heat source and when the lid is lifted up and across the heat source, he/she is exposed to a sudden release of intense heat and/or flare-ups that can cause burns and injury. Moreover, the user continues to be exposed to intense heat and flare-ups as his/her arm moves over the heat source while continuing to open the lid to the open position. Risk of injury to the user is also problematic whenever a lid is closed that requires reaching over the heat.
Furthermore, lids that typically “hang” over the cooking surface cause an additional risk when the hot grill is open, because the lid may unintentionally fall, causing possible injury.
In addition, grills with open front access to the charcoal and adjustable height cooking grates are difficult to cover with a traditional “upwards opening” lid because of the additional surface area required to cover both the front and top of the cooking enclosure. As a result, it is difficult to design a lid that is not too large or cumbersome to accommodate a moving cooking grate structure, and it necessitates a very large lid hanging over the grill while in the open position.
In the prior art, grills that control temperature by using a mechanism that adjusts the height of the “cooking grate” include U.S. Pat. No. 4,462,306. However, mechanism of this type include a rod that holds the cooking grate structure, and runs across the center of the cooking grate, thereby getting in the way of the food and handling of the food when the cooking grate is high above the coals and close to the rod. Grills in the prior art that have “adjustable height cooking grates,” as opposed to “adjustable height fire grates,” often have such inherent design problems.
While U.S. Pat. No. 3,358,587 focuses on a means to cook food in a vertical position, so that dripping from the food will not fall on the charcoal or flames, hence reducing the amount of smoke and flare-ups, it also describes a means by which the firebox can be moved closer or farther from the food to regulate the temperature. U.S. Pat. No. 5,421,318 provides a grill in which the cooking enclosure is completely enclosed with access to the fire through a front door, but there is no separate firebox for indirect cooking, or for preparing the fire on the side. As described above, the lid opens upwards, and although the cooking grate is adjustable in height by means of a crank, the cooking grate appears to hang from cables that rely upon gravity and offers no endless loop action that can apply downward force. Moreover, by providing four points of contact in each corner of the cooking grate, additional stability is provided, but it requires two support shafts, including one at front which will get in the way of handling the food. Moreover, while this '587 and '318 grills do show a lid, there is no suggestion that the lid may be moved down and back.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,660,101 offers a means to rotate food 180 degrees to expose both sides of the food to heat and facilitate cooking by means of an elaborate mechanism of sprockets and chains that allow the user to rotate the food basket by turning a crank. Neither a lid nor a separate firebox is suggested as a claimed element of the invention.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,809,988 discloses an enclosed grill with a front door for access to the combustible material. A lid and a crank operated mechanism that enables the vertical height adjustment of the combustible material to control the cooking temperature, but it fails to provide a means for adjusting the height of the cooking grate height, as opposed to adjusting the fire grate height.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,557,544 provides an open grill without a lid that offers a means of lighting the charcoal with gas, and has an adjustment mechanism to change the height of the cooking grate to provide temperature control. Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 7,856,924 provides an open fire grill with a means for adjusting the height of the fire grate to control the temperature while using a rotisserie type mechanism to cook the food, although a non-lid means is described to partially cover the food from above with a hood that reflects the heat.
Finally, U.S. Pat. No. 7,878,186 provides a grill having a lid that can be opened upwards in various positions, and further provides a crank adjustable height cooking grate to permit both indirect and direct heat cooking. Although offering improvements to the prior art, the '186 patent fails to include an improved firebox. Published Appl. US2010/0206287 describes an enclosed combined grill/smoker with an offset firebox for smoking, and a lid that opens upwards as appear in traditional grills, and a means of adjusting the fire grate height to control the temperature. In addition, Published Appl. US 2011/0283889 describes an open grill with a means for adjusting the height of the cooking grate to control the temperature, although there is no reference to the lid or the firebox to combine direct heat grilling and smoking.
As a result, in light of the foregoing, it is clear that there is an unmet need in the art that has not been met. Prior art grills lack lids that open in a downward direction, enabling open-front access to the charcoal, wood, and/or other combustible fuels, while protecting the user from blasts of heat when opening the heated grill to access the food or the firebox in motions that require the user to dangerously reach across the heat source. Nor does the prior art currently provide an adjustable height cooking grate in a grill, using a continuous loop cable system to provide reliable, adjustable vertical movement.